AIDS Patient Charged in Slaying of His Mother, 63 : Crime: A Van Nuys woman who went to Manhattan to care for her ailing son was found beaten to death in his apartment. He attempted suicide after the attack.

A Van Nuys woman was bludgeoned to death in Manhattan with a hammer and a wooden statue by her AIDS-afflicted son, who then attempted suicide by setting himself on fire, police said Friday.

Leona Imbert, 63, had flown to New York to care for her 39-year-old son, Earl Imbert, an unemployed actor who worked as a word processor, said Sgt. Al King of the New York Police Department.

She told her Van Nuys neighbors that she was planning to bring her son back to California because he had suffered a stroke and needed constant care, said Juanita Skaggs, who manages the three-story building in the 15300 block of Gault Street where Leona Imbert had lived alone for eight years.

Police went to Earl Imbert’s apartment at 19 E. 21st St. in Manhattan on Thursday after receiving a call from his brother in California, King said. The brother, who police identified as Albert Imbert, had become alarmed about his mother’s safety after talking with his brother, King said.

When officers arrived, Earl Imbert answered the door wearing a charred, blood-spattered polo shirt and shorts, King said, and had open sores on his arms.

Officers found the body of his mother wrapped in a blanket. The short, heavyset woman with salt-and-pepper hair had been beaten “almost beyond recognition” with a hammer and a small wooden carved statue, King said.

Officers also found two one-way tickets to Los Angeles in the man’s apartment. Earl Imbert told detectives he had killed his mother and then wrapped himself in a shower curtain and set himself on fire, King said. But he jumped into the shower after suffering second- and third-degree burns over 25% of his body.

“He told us all about it--gave himself up,” King said.

Earl Imbert’s brother, who could not be reached for comment, told officers his brother had AIDS and a history of psychological problems, King said.

Earl Imbert is “a disturbed man--he spoke to us in a flat monotone the whole time,” King said.

Imbert was taken to the burn unit at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, where he was in critical but stable condition late Friday, said Kathy Robinson, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

King said police do not know the motive for the slaying. Neighbors in the six-story Manhattan building where Earl Imbert lived for several years on the top floor told officers they did not hear any unusual noises coming from the apartment. However, they said they believed the man had told his mother he had a brain tumor and concealed the fact that he had AIDS, King said.

The matricide prompted AIDS organizations in Los Angeles to point out that although people with the disease are more likely than the general population to commit suicide, they are not ordinarily more violent.

“This is very unusual--there are people with AIDS who have dementia, but they are usually too physically disabled to commit violent crimes,” said Sally Jue, mental health program manager for the AIDS Project Los Angeles. “They generally have to have some kind of history of violent behavior before they ever became HIV-infected to act like this.”

Skaggs, the manager of Leona Imbert’s apartment house in Van Nuys, said the woman was “a lovely, quiet person” who enjoyed oil painting. Skaggs said that like many units in the building, the woman’s apartment was federally subsidized because she was disabled.

“She’d asked us if she could bring back her son to nurse him until he got better,” Skaggs said.

Earl Imbert was arrested Thursday and booked on suspicion of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon--the hammer and the statue.